1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring device, a monitoring method, and a monitoring system adapted to remotely control a device to be monitored connected to a network in a centralized manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, products using shipped products including servers of a plurality of types, storage, and so forth in combination (hereinafter referred to as multifunctional devices) have been shipped.
Known monitoring systems include the multifunctional device functioning as a device to be monitored and a monitoring device including a center, a distribution device, and a monitoring-and-display device.
When a support contract for the multifunctional device is made, the devices forming the multifunctional device are often considered as a single device for which the support contract is made. On the other hand, each of the devices forming the multifunctional device, for example, the servers, a tape unit, the storage has a device-identification number.
Here, if troubles occur in individual devices forming the multifunctional device, the center is notified of trouble-notification information for each of the device-identification numbers corresponding to the devices in which troubles occur.
The center has no information relating to the multifunctional device to which the individual device that transmitted the trouble information belongs. Therefore, if a trouble occurs in the storage forming the multifunctional device, for example, the center transmits the notified trouble information of the device-identification information of the storage to the distribution device, as it is. The distribution device defines an identification number of each of the individual devices in association with information about the support contract, as a filter.
Then, if the filter of the distribution device is defined, maintenance information obtained by adding the support-contract information to the trouble-notification information is transmitted and shown on the monitoring-and-display device. Then, a system administrator performs client support on the basis of the details on the maintenance information.
On the other hand, if the filter definition is not made by the distribution device, only the trouble-notification information corresponding to the device-identification number of the storage is transmitted and shown on the monitoring-and-display device. Here, if a support contract for the multifunctional device with a client is made, it becomes possible to know the correspondence between the multifunctional device and the support-contract information. However, according to known technologies, it was impossible to know the correspondence between the individual devices forming the multifunctional device and the support-contract information provided for the multifunctional device. Therefore, the system administrator or a person in charge of maintenance on the monitoring-device side needs to check details on the support contract made for the device on the basis of the received trouble-notification information.
In that case, there is a need to generate new information obtained by associating the support-contract information with each of the devices forming the multifunctional device and register the new information with the distribution device. As a result, a large number of man-hours are required to confirm details on the support contract and register the support contract. Further, a mistake may occur while the details on the support contract are confirmed and/or the registration is performed.
Further, if troubles occur in the plurality of devices forming the multifunctional device when the multifunctional device is considered as a single device, it may be desirable that the troubles be addressed in association with one another. According to the known technologies, however, the trouble-notification information transmitted from the individual devices of the multifunctional device does not show that the multifunctional device is associated with the individual devices forming the multifunctional device. Therefore, when the trouble-notification information is transmitted from the individual devices, the monitoring device has to address many trouble occurrences, which may require a large number of man-hours for performing maintenance.
Thus, the above-described method requires a large number of man-hours, and causes human errors while establishing the support-contract-information associations, which affects support tasks.
An object of the present invention is to provide a monitoring device, a monitoring method, a monitoring system that automatically associate the devices forming the multifunctional device with information relating to maintenance such as the support-contract information of the multifunctional device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a monitoring device, a monitoring method, and a monitoring system that compile unnecessary and overlapping maintenance information items, so as not to transmit the information items, when troubles occur in the devices forming the multifunctional devices due to the same reasons.